March 20, 2017

This recent work, called Satyr and Nymph series by Ben Lau, is not an easy one to digest. It is to be expected, as most folks only view things in a piecemeal manner. Viewing art, it is important to take in the self- nature / the soul, of the composition all at once. Let not the narrative or the coloration distract you, as after all, the narrative or the coloration are just excuses, no more! They are just some sort of vehicles for the composition to come into existence. They are the circumstantial elements . They are not “the thing! ”

How to take in the self- nature of the composition all at once? I have spoken on this topic many times on www.thealphaseer.com ( thanks to my dear friend Billy Zhou in keeping it up for mankind!) The best technique is just narrowing your eyes when you are viewing the composition. By narrowing, you relax the focus of your vision field . Why do we need to widen the vision field? It is to make sure we are not looking at a particular point on the surface of the composition, so we can determine the entire white at a glance. In a similar way, try to also obtain the shape of the total black at a glance. If you are able to see those two great structures, congratulate yourself, buy yourself a good dinner to celebrate this triumph tonight, because you are face to face with the self-nature, or the soul, of the composition. The self-nature of a masterpiece will not lie to you. It is right here, right now. It will continue to be there in a million years. It will still be relevant after a million years! But that statement is not easily understood unless you have an extraordinary I. Q. !

To give you a deepen sense of this love for the great black and white structures I am showing another composition. On the right is a masterpiece by the great Knox Martin. Knox is inspired by African masks. That is a fact speaking loud and clear here. What the great master is doing here, my friends, is baring the self-nature/ soul of his composition to you! He is baring it without reservation, totally without the camouflage of coloration or emotion or narrative. If you are able to see his great black (1) and white (1) structures, congratulate yourself: you are on the right track– face to face with the self-nature/ soul of his composition. You are staring down into the soul of artistic greatness!

Artistic geniuses are so rare that they are one in a billion in each era. IN the 19th Century, we only have Ingres, Manet, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, Juan Gris, and Seurat. In the 20th Century, we only have Gorky, de Kooning, Knox Martin etc. They can certainly not be found everywhere,–at least not in our current bustling postmodern art market! A no-talent painter such as Marcel Duchamp does not have a soul to offer to the world. If one is a mediocre artist, the soul being offered is likewise mediocre, random and confused. Only an artistic genius, a bona-fide artist, can express his/ her soul loud and clear with lucidity and power! A bona-fide genius has no need to charm you, or mesmerize your emotions. If you can recall the following people’s works and you will know exactly what I mean. Frida Kahlo, Munch, Norman Rockwell, Monet, Pollock, Pissarro, Damien Hirsts, Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, as well as about 10 thousand other so-called artists are no-talent impostors. All they can offer are gimmicks and narratives. I am not attacking them at all, just pointing out the truth! If you have loved them before–why? no one is stopping you from that! Continue to do so since they seem to turn you on–which is certainly not a bad thing… . But I don’t envy you, since you won’t be able to get a full taste for greatness owing to your self-inflicted lock-down of your own vision. If you have become open-minded in the wrong way, there is no help, since all that glitters are not gold!

Hopefully at some point in time you will thank me for letting you know this particular trade secret of the bona-fide artistic geniuses. Hopefully one day you will be grateful to me in helping to awaken your own soul to the joy of artistic greatness! That’s why I am still here, writing this blog, and offering to you free access to art appreciation– the proper way to approach artistic greatness, since I really want to set you free, from the exploitations of the academics. They are charging you thousands of dollars for completely useless “art classes.”

They are the blindest fish in the water, and yet they are offering you art classes! What audacity!!!!!But you are to blame for your herd instincts. After all, it is you, with your herd instincts, who will willingly pay them for those completely useless “art classes!”